York / NEW YORK

NEWS

2009-08-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

York / NEW YORK began in September 2008 at the International Conference Writing Encounters at York St John University. Claire Hind curated a series of commissions in partnership with Claire MacDonald and Lenora Champagne. The 10 commissions of brand new pieces of writing were curated within an installation of open booths which housed the work by writing artists from the UK and the USA. Each performance text was written specifically to suit a technology which included a dictaphone, telephone, computer, tape recorder and microphone so it could be read/performed/recorded by participants within five minutes. The installation was open to the public, as well as delegates and artists of the Writing Encounters symposium at York St John University over the course of 2 days. This new blog archives these recordings.

Making short work of it...

PHASE TWO

2009-08-01T07:02:00.001-07:00

Claire MacDonald will be curating the next phase of York/New York in collaboration with Claire Hind and Lenora Champagne under the title of York/New York Sterne/Stein. Details to follow.

LISTEN

2009-08-01T06:59:00.001-07:00

All Audio files are available listen online.

Wendy Houstoun UK
Lenora Champagne USA
Sohail Khan UK
Fiona Templeton USA
Brian Chikwava UK
Eisa Davis USA
Michael Pinchbeck UK
John Jesurun USA
Cathy Naden UK
Holly Hughes USA

LINKS

2009-08-01T06:58:00.005-07:00

Writers

Michael Pinchbeck

Sohail Khan

Lenora Champagne

Wendy Houstoun

Fiona Templeton

John Jesurun

Holly Hughes

Eisa Davis

Brian Chikwava

Blog Design

Nathan Walker

Holly Hughes

2009-08-01T06:58:00.003-07:00

“About.”

I can’t believe we’ve lived next door all these years and we’re strangers.

'About' Recording 1

'About' Recording 2

'About' Recording 3

'About' Recording 4

Writing artist - Holly Hughes and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

“About.” Growing up in Michigan and later living in New York, I was always vaguely aware of Canada, our neighbour to the north. It was hard to take it seriously as a foreign country, the currency was devalued, the English sounded like ours…But beneath our indifferences was the knowledge that Canada has always existed as a mirror, embodying the promises of freedom that America so often failed to extend to all of us.

Cathy Naden

2009-08-01T06:58:00.001-07:00

IF YOU’ RE THERE, PICK UP

(START THE STOPWATCH)

"Hello"

"It's me."

If you're there pick up Recording 1

If you're there pick up Recording 2

If you're there pick up Recording 3

If you're there pick up Recording 4

If you're there pick up Recording 5

Writing artist - Cathy Naden and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

Playing with improvisation and stage directions, If You’re There, Pick Up is a 5-minute performance to be recorded into a telephone. Working against the clock, the speaker negotiates scripted words, silences, observation, reflection and spontaneous talking to construct a text that is part answer machine message and part invocation to an unknown listener. Working with live-decision-making and manufactured performance, If You’re There, Pick Up explores the fragility of intimate conversation between a speaker and a listener, as it attempts to situate them between the memory of their own past encounters and the immediacy of the present.

John Jesurun

2009-08-01T06:57:00.008-07:00

DUET

A: Two analog tape recorders will be needed for the recording of the final tape.

DUET Recording 1

DUET Recording 2

Writing artist - John Jesurun and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

Duet is a piece written for one voice, two “parts” and two analog tape recorders. It is about recording the act of recording. It features a transmission from mind to words on the page, from the page to the voice, from voice to recorder and from recorder to ear as sound. In its completed form it is an audio entity which describes its purpose for “being” as the substantiation of the process of its recording. The text itself becomes a “character” with a self referential intent to shift from being words on a page to becoming sound recorded. The entire recording/reading process can be completed by one person/performer. It involves the tape recording of a live voice in conversation with a recording of that same voice.

Michael Pinchbeck

2009-08-01T06:57:00.007-07:00

The Wild Track

The voice that comes out of the static

The Wild Track Recording 1

The Wild Track Recording 2

The Wild Track Recording 3

The Wild Track Recording 4

The Wild Track Recording 5

The Wild Track Recording 6

Writing artist - Michael Pinchbeck and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

The wild track, also known as wild sound and wild lines, is an audio recording intended to be synchronized with film or video but recorded separately. Generally, the term "wild track" refers to sound recorded on location, such as sound effects gathered when the cameras were not rolling or extra takes of lines performed for audio only… Note that the wild track is considered something of a "cheapie" solution to these problems, and a big-budget production is more likely to use studio-recorded sound in these situations, as its quality is more controllable and predictable than the wild track. - Wikipedia

Eisa Davis

2009-08-01T06:57:00.005-07:00

DON’T SAY THAT

what’d you say?
where’s my frickin pen.

Don't Say That Recording 1

Don't Say That Recording 2

Don't Say That Recording 3

Don't Say That Recording 4

Don't Say That Recording 5

Writing artist - Eisa Davis and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

I don't know what I am doing. This is called exploration and if I'm not exploring my work is dead. I always have ideas about what I'd like to do, but most often, when I begin to write, my work takes on its own momentum and ignores me. I may be able to talk about what I've done in hindsight however, so I'll try to do that here. I've been playing music and writing for the same length of time, which is practically my whole life. My grandmother always encouraged me to 'sound it out' when I read, so that's perhaps why I've enjoyed literature's orality, its music; why I became a playwright rather than a novelist. I love hearing people speak at a ceremonial level (legal arguments, political speeches, academic talks) and I love unusual slang, community languages, and unselfconscious speaking as well. I love speech in verse. Moments when people are so eloquent or so quotidian you have to stop and listen--I'm interested in that.

Brian Chikwava

2009-08-01T06:57:00.003-07:00

One Dandelion Seed-head

Dad,

I’m putting this down by Dictaphone, that old thing that belonged to grandpa.

Dandelion Recording 1

Dandelion Recording 2

Dandelion Recording 3

Dandelion Recording 4

Dandelion Recording 5

Writing artist - Brian Chikwava and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description
Dandelion is the final letter, a Dictaphone letter, the kind that any parent who has mostly brought up a family far from his native land dreads. It’s author, a person of a hybrid identity, belongs to both the British and another foreign culture yet does not quite fit into either; in London he’s on the edge, while with the custodians of his other inherited cultural background, his family, he has a less than ideal relationship and little inclination to make connections with the place where the family originally came from.

Fiona Templeton

2009-08-01T06:57:00.001-07:00

(Space = Silence)

(sharp intake of breath with mouth open)

(let breath out)

what echoes

without a call?

Space=Silence Recording 1

Space=silence Recording 2

Space=Silence Recording 3

Space=Silence Recording 4

Space=Silence Recording 5

Writing artist - Fiona Templeton and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

The title of my text, Space = Silence, is also intended as an instruction of its reading, as well as referring to what happens within narrative of the text itself. The silences invoke shifts in understanding what is happening, and spatial shifts in reconstructing the events.

Sohail Khan

2009-08-01T06:56:00.005-07:00

" Endless Apology"
( "I am so tired I could die of this.")

I am sorry that I have not been in touch before now.

Endless Apology Recording 1

Endless Apology Recording 2

Endless Apology Recording 3

Writing artist - Sohail Khan and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

Endless Apology is a text about love and loss and the terror of simulated honesty with phrases culled from the communications of the artists lost loves letters. It is reflection upon the personal to universal in these matters of the heart and the terror of a situation of exposure. How in language we repeat the clichés of past relationships in words and gestures in an attempt to make the matter important and meaningful. It is an performed text. That uses instructions that create an enforcement of a simulation of emotional expression upon the reader. Through this act of parody the text elicits the readers own emotions and memory. So the listener(s) is drawn into listening a meaningful fake. It is a reflection of the reality break between reading, listening and feeling in the act of reading and receiving a text. What is real or unreal for those involved in this experience. As well as the level of commitment, emotional and personnel responsibility they can bring to the work.

Lenora Champagne

2009-08-01T06:56:00.003-07:00

Priscilla

I’ve been spending time in chairs.

Priscilla Recording 1

Priscilla Recording 2

Priscilla Recording 3

Priscilla Recording 4

Writing artist - Lenora Champagne and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

Priscilla. I'm interested in perception--in how the world looks different depending on where you stand to see, and on what you're looking for. I'm interested in representation--how the aesthetic portrayal of individuals and groups conveys their "value" in society. I'm interested in language (words, images, movement) as a means to play with and affect perception and representation. With my intricate stories and metaphors, I aim to move audiences both intellectually and emotionally--to challenge them to think and feel about the complex ways in which we are implicated in each other's stories, and in the larger society. My work is often about women and how they deal with power or the lack of it, and how sexuality and subversive thinking play into power. My background (I’m from Cajun Louisiana) continues to be a rich source of imagery and ideas for me, as are my travels to other parts of the world. Coming from an old part of the country, where more than one language is spoken, where peculiar social codes are still passed on, where racial justice is an ongoing concern, I address issues of relationships and power, responsibility and desire from a perspective that reflects my own difference.

Wendy Houstoun

2009-08-01T06:56:00.001-07:00

BLOODY LANGUAGE

Bloody language .
Bloody language .
Come barging in here uninvited.

Bloody Language Recording 1

Bloody Language Recording 2

Bloody Language Recording 3

Bloody Language Recording 4

Bloody Language Recording 5

Writing artist - Wendy Houstoun and sound recordings spoken/performed by participants during the York/NEW YORK installation at the Writing Encounters symposium, September 2008

Writers Description

Bloody Language came out of a research period with Charlotte Vincent.
In the room were musicians, dancers , and a couple of us more cross breed types.
At the time we were talking a lot about silence, pauses, rests.
We were looking for space.
As I read it, we were also talking about the tension between the experience of the body and how that is put into language.
If the truth be told –despite my love of language, I have always felt it to be a bit of a bully to the unarticulated ( not inarticulate ) body that daily negotiates its state.

I documented a discussion about this with just the beginnings of sentences.
All the – I think, I want, and I believe .

And I guess, as a combination of these things- the text came about.

PHASE ONE

2009-08-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

York / NEW YORK phase one at Writing Encounters International Symposium September 2008. See ABOUT for more information.

10 writing artists / five minute commissions /

Writing for the Computer - Wendy Houstoun UK / Lenora Champagne USA

Writing for the Microphone - Sohail Khan UK / Fiona Templeton USA

Writing for the Dictaphone - Brian Chikwava UK / Eisa Davis USA

Writing for the Cassette recorder - Michael Pinchbeck UK / John Jesurun USA

Writing for the Telephone - Cathy Naden UK / Holly Hughes USA

ABOUT

2009-08-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Claire MacDonald, Lenora Champagne and Claire Hind commissioned the writing artists for the 5 minute performance texts. They were interested in generating new short works from writing artists some of whom practice within the field of performance. York / NEW YORK is a significant title in the fact it brings writing together from across the Atlantic and also because the commissioners are working artists based in the two cities. The aim of this project is to be able to map a creative and experimental relationship between York and New York and phase two of this project will look at the relationship between Laurence Sterne and Gertrude Stein and the writing possibilities around this idea.

Curator’s Statement
When thinking about the possibilities of the commissions I decided to ask the artists to consider writing a text for a dictaphone, microphone, and computer, cassette recorder or a telephone. I imagined a space where the participant would have an intimate relationship with the material through such technologies. The ‘old school’ and current technologies enable the reader to record a/their/several versions of the text as an audio recording experience. I was particularly interested in how an artist might choose to write the page in response to their chosen technology and how the participant may encounter that writing by responding to their page and the recording medium. Each commissioned text was housed in a booth for collective participatory installation, and each booth represented the individuality and originality of each writing artist while simultaneously operating together as an eclectic yet connected experience.

Claire Hind

Biographies of Commissioners & Curator

Claire Hind is a Senior Lecturer in Performance at York St John University UK. She has collaborated with Claire MacDonald and Simon Zimmerman on several performance writing projects including 'in bed' which was housed at George Mason University, USA. Claire has directed projects in Russia at the TJUZ Theatre St Petersburg and in Europe - for the Sibiu International Theatre festival and has recently performed her latest work Hotel Two Rooms for the conference - Cultures of Translation: Adaptation in Film and Performance, Cardiff. Claire's practice led research investigates deep and dark play in performance making, with particular attention upon the attitudes and encounters of rehearsing death in live performance. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Leeds and is guest editing the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice with Professor Susan Orr. Most recently, Claire collaborated with Claire Macdonald from the UK to curate the international writing for performance symposium Writing Encounters and is currently working towards a Writing Encounters 2 event for 2011 which will include phase 2 of the York / NEW YORK project in collaboration with Lenora Champagne.

Our visit to New York September 2009 to present the online recordings of York / NEW YORK is supported by UK artist Nathan Walker and York St John University Theatre students Hannah Cutting and Hayley Hetherington.

Claire MacDonald Has worked in performance and visual art for the past thirty years as a performer, maker and now as a writer and editor. She is Director of the International Centre for Fine Art Research at the University of the Arts London, a founding editor of Performance Research, and a Contributing Editor to Performing Arts Journal. She is currently developing a long-term project on performance history called Sounding Performance, and is writing about performance collaboration. She co-curates performance writing projects, including a recent set of commissions for writing artists in the UK and USA called York / NEW YORK. She lived in Washington DC from 98 – 2005, and now divides her time between the UK and Greece, where she also writes about contemporary Greek art and performance and is currently developing a film project with Leda Papaconstandinou. Her recent play, Correspondence, was directed by Patrick Morris for Menagerie Theatre. She has a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, recently completed her first novel.

Lenora Champagne (writer/director) was awarded a NYSCA commission and a Yaddo residency to support TRACES/fades, her play about Alzheimer's and the American inability to remember history that premiered in July 2008. Her plays and performance works have been produced and presented in New York City, around the U.S., and in Europe and Australia. Her performance writing is published by Smith and Kraus and in Performing Arts Journal, Women and Performance Journal, Performance Research, Chain, The Iowa Review and in Out From Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists. Champagne received a fellowship from New York Foundation of the Arts in performance art in 2003 and a NYFA fellowship in playwriting in 1998. She and com poser Daniel Levy received a 1999 Richard Rodgers Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for THE SINGING: A CYBERSPACE OPERA. She was in residence with Voice and Vision at Bard this summer, working on her new play, Staying Afloat, and has been in residence at the MacDowell Colony many times. Champagne is an alumna of New Dramatists, a former HARP artist at HERE Arts Center, a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, an affiliated artist with New Georges, and Kempner Distinguished Professor at Purchase College, SUNY.

POST 1 - THE ARCHIVE

2009-07-12T03:47:00.000-07:00

York / NEW YORK is currently being archived into accessible audio tracks. These audio-texts will be available for download.

Watch this Space (between words).